Opening To the Reader 15 My Journey 25, 35
CONTENTS
1 Feeling Inspired desire 43 imagination 50 purpose 57 curiosity 64 risk 70
2 Getting Started concentration 79 discovery 85 learning 91 chaos 97 commitment 102
3 Hitting the Wall problems 113 resistance 121 suffering 131 compassion 139 courage 147
4 Going Deep mystery 159 mourning 165 patience 173 trust 181 intuition 189
6 Finishing integrity 239 judgment 246 compromise 253 fulďŹ llment 260 emptiness 265
7 Stepping Out communication 275 transparency 280 standing place 287 success 295 gratitude 303
5 Working Passionately clarity 201 engagement 208 tension 215 consistency 221 rest 229
Closing The Creative Spiral 311 Epilogue 317
Feeling Inspired
A strong passion for any objective will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means. —William Hazlitt
Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. —Rumi
So don’t ask yourself what people want. Ask instead, what is true? What really inspires me, excites me? —David Edwards
Desire THE JUICY, EXCITED FEELING of desire keeps life in motion. Has the luster of your current lifestyle lost its glow? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to leave that high-stress job you’ve held for twenty years and move to Panama to open a bed & breakfast? Have you fantasized about turning a weed-infested lot into a community garden? Or do you long to go back to school and study painting—or write your first book at the age of sixty-five? . . . Desire is the impulse that sparks the flame. Without desire, our existence becomes remote and passionless. We need the energy of desire to come alive—but not all desires are created equal. Some desires propel us toward satisfying self-expression, connection, and service. Others entice and titillate, leaving us lost in a parade of empty distractions, as one desire spirals endlessly into another.
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Wild Ideas
Consumer culture tends to amplify our superficial and incidental desires so much that we can’t hear our deeper longings. How then do we distinguish genuine desire from distorted desire? How do we tell the difference between the internal urgency that signals empty obsession and the deep need that compels us toward authenticity?
r True desire comes from the heart. It speaks to some deeper and more meaningful truth. What do I care about? What really matters? These questions call us home to ourselves. Once our dreams slip into shadow, they can become obscured or distorted by empty preoccupations. In such cases, it takes time to discover the authentic energy of desire. Recently, Steve called to ask if I might help him take his photography hobby “to the next level.” Over the years, he has had a series of intermittent love affairs with the camera, during which time his efforts showed signs of artistic promise. But whenever Steve reached the point where commitment to his art was needed, he summarily abandoned the relationship. At our first meeting, Steve seems totally baffled by his inability to stick with his goal. I ask him to tell me what it means to be an artist. Quickly becoming animated, Steve relays larger-than-life fantasies about becoming famous, making lots of money, and living in a big house. Not once does he mention anything about the process of taking pictures, or the kind of things he feels drawn to photograph, or even what first moved him to want to take pictures. Here is an example of someone who is in the grip of a desire that, at heart, weakens him. Steve’s longing for fame and fortune simply isn’t compelling enough to enable him to stick with the rigors of becoming a working artist. I can see from his photographs that Steve really does have a unique
Feeling Inspired
vision and a genuine talent for capturing haunting images. I ask Steve to close his eyes and visualize the part of himself that is already an artist: “Ask him what HE wants,” I prompt. Steve spends subsequent sessions questioning and listening to himself in a way he never has before. I ask Steve to continue these conversations in a journal so he can practice and develop a new habit of communicating with his inner artist. This simple technique helps him diminish his surface preoccupation with acclaim, focusing his attention on something deeper—his desire to communicate through photographic images. Steve’s new intimacy with himself connects him with a deep desire to take responsibility for his heart and what it is asking him to do. When his fears surface, we use this same dialogue strategy for naming and facing them. Afterwards, Steve feels empowered and proud. He slowly develops a new vision for his life, grounded in the value of pursuing his passion for its own sake. Making money at what he loves is a worthwhile goal, but letting go of grandiose expectations for the future means Steve feels less pressure in the present. Lightening the weight of his emotional baggage empowers Steve to shift a lifelong pattern of avoidance and embrace genuine feelings of desire.
r The vibrancy of creative desire is part of the same life-force energy found in everything in the natural world. The flow of desire can feel as natural as breathing. But many of us never learn how to connect to it or direct it in a satisfying way. Consequently, the force of desire can sometimes frighten and attract simultaneously, triggering a potent mix of complex feelings: excitement, motivation, optimism, happiness, confidence, aggression, greed, frustration, fear, shame, or destructive impulsivity.
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Wild Ideas
For years, I wasted the energies of desire because I did not have the ability to quiet myself in order to identify and then focus my passions constructively. I lived in a constant whirl in which my desire manifested itself superficially in the drama of youthful rebellion, experimentation, and romantic distraction. I fancied myself to be fully alive, while the rest of the world languished in a dreary conventional existence. In reality, I was misdirecting valuable emotional energy, making it impossible for me to connect with who I really was and what I really wanted. What I sought was meaning and an outlet for its expression, but I couldn’t tolerate the deep connection and slowness of pace that the cultivation of meaning requires. Many creators possess a strong emotional nature. Whether we act out our emotions as I did, or act them in, by repressing and restricting the body’s natural flow of feeling, the end result is similar. If we can’t connect with our desires, decipher their meaning, and channel their energy effectively, then the force of desire ends up controlling us. When I finally wore myself out, I started questioning the way I had been implementing the early lessons of my life. In so doing, I took my first meaningful steps in learning how to contain the flow of my passions.
r We cannot maintain relationships, let alone achieve our goals, without exerting self-control over the mind’s incessant stream of impulse and desire. Early and sometimes painful lessons in delaying gratification are part of the normal process of socialization that begins before we can even speak. Unfortunately, in accomplishing this task, many of us don’t necessarily develop actual skills to contact, contain, and channel emotional energy productively. Instead, out of fear, we instinctively constrict our bodies in an attempt to shut off the flow of sensation. Maybe we do find our place as responsible and productive
Feeling Inspired
members of society—but over time, the signal of authentic desire becomes so weak we scarcely know it is there. Without realizing how it happened, we wake up one day to find ourselves standing outside of our own lives, resigned, and diminished. Containment becomes an important strategy for helping creators manage emotion, especially strong emotions like desire. When we learn to contain, instead of constrict, restrict, or act out, we can experience intensity of emotion, stay engaged with our process, and channel emotional vibrancy into our work. A way of being that contains and nurtures the intensity of desire looks something like this: We become quiet and surround our aspirations with a secure field of acceptance and love. Then we find a safe place inside ourselves where we can visit and play with our hopes and dreams, as well as examine our fears. We learn to wait and be patient with ourselves. We stop forcing solutions. We focus instead on healing the constricted places in our psyches in order to grow strong enough and clear enough to act.
r From a spiritual perspective, desire expresses our heart’s longing for union with the self and beyond. It is the deep need to direct our energies and talents toward meaningful ends. If we permit our doubts and our fears—of intimacy, abandonment, loss of control, or failure— to go unchallenged, we will turn away from the intense engagement, the demands for new learning, and the considered sacrifice that the creative process requires. It took me a long, long time to tame my restless passions, to step away from my outwardly adventurous life, to abandon surface excitement in favor of a deeper and more fulfilling— yet more demanding—relationship with myself and the world. It has been both the hardest thing I have ever done, and the best.
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Wild Ideas
When you embrace your heart’s desire, you must be prepared to welcome and work with everything that lies within your heart— loneliness, grief, depression, anger, fear, shame, joy, passion, tenderness, generosity, forgiveness, gratitude, courage—all of it. Learning to acknowledge desire is the first step in the creative process. Once you allow yourself to want something badly enough, the force of your wanting will give you the strength to open the door to inner resources you simply can’t see until you take that first step. Listen. Listen to that small stubborn voice loving you in secret; it beckons you to a new world. Are you ready?
Further Reflections On Desire The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. If you wish to go deeper, explore one or more of the following questions. Write, draw, dance, paint, meditate . . . 6 Am I satisfied with how I spend my days? If not, what do I want? 6 Do I frequently feel overwhelmed by competing desires? Which of my desires are strong, which are weak, and which seem to contradict each other? Upon reflection, which desires matter most? 6 When do I feel most alive? What do I see when I close my eyes and imagine living my truest life? What am I longing to create? If I could sing my song, what would the title be? 6 Where do I settle for less because I’m afraid I can’t have what I want? Do I focus too much on fulfilling the desires of others while neglecting my own?
Feeling Inspired
6 Upon reflection, which of my desires are inspired by externals like advertising—or by what others expect, have, or want? 6 Which of my desires are actually attempts to de-stress, serving as “rewards” for over-working or doing what I don’t want to do? Does satisfying these desires help or hinder my creativity? 6 What helps me gather up the courage to walk away from things I want, but don’t need, in order to focus on what truly matters? 6 What deep yearnings still hover at the periphery of my life? What desires have I given up because I’m afraid to fail? 6 In what ways do I squander valuable emotional energy that could be directed into fulfilling my dreams? 6 How can I cultivate my heart’s desire? What habits and practices nourish my dreams? 6 What brings meaning to my life? What gives me pleasure on a daily basis? Where do meaning and pleasure overlap for me? If they don’t, what prevents me from finding pleasure in meaning and well-being?
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